INFORMATION our focus INTERNATIONAL our scope INTERDISCIPLINARY our mindset
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Dr. Hope Olson with her doctoral advisee Jihee Beak.
“I was new to this culture and I found it hard to interact with professors,” states doctoral student Jihee Beak. Through time, Hope became “the most influential person I’ve met in this country. She’s my advisor, my mentor, my role model, even sometimes my mom. She helps me to justify the value of my work…she passes her passion forward.” Jihee Beak, PhD 2014 influential person I’ve met in this country. She’s my advisor, my
for analysis. These records are surrogates for patients but patients’
mentor, my role model, even sometimes my mom. She helps me
voices are generally not heard and power dynamics are complex.
to justify the value of my work…she passes her passion forward.”
For example, she discovered that when the doctors noted she was a “pleasant woman”, they were indicating that she was “compliant”.
Retirement What does retirement mean to a scholar? Hope says that some stop working, others stay active in their field to varying degrees. Hope is currently happy to have a respite from teaching classes, but she delights in working with students individually. Parkinson’s Disease limits her independent research so she passes on to others most of the research problems she identifies. Her major ongoing research stream, in collaboration with Lynne Howarth (University of Toronto), concerns the nature and roles of surrogates (e.g. library catalog records as surrogates for books or database entries for journal articles). Last summer they explored surrogates
(With a mischievous smile, she notes that not all doctors describe her this way.) What does such coding imply about the power relationships between patient and doctor? What does it imply for other contexts? Faculty, staff, alums, and students of the School of Information Studies are deeply grateful to Dr. Hope Olson for her passion, her creativity, her intellect, her friendship, for the lasting mark she has made through her internationally respected scholarship. All good wishes go to her in her retirement as she continues to “pass her passion forward.”
as vehicles for making marginalized voices heard. Hope has obtained a decade of her own medical records to employ as texts
Summer 2014 |
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